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Monday, November 18, 2013

Roosh Rallies the Troops! (And Bans Me Again)

Today, Roosh trumpets into the void:"It's time to start delivering death blows to feminists!" Ladies who tweet, beware: Roosh and his most fervent disciple Matt Forney are already all over you like flies on shit. They post the most inflammatory crap they can summon in their overheated imaginations. (The topic du jour was why girls with eating disorders make the best victims of "game"). Then they sit back and trawl Twitter to harvest the oh-so-predictable outrage. Anyone who links to a Roosh's (or Matt Forney's) name or their sites gets immediately "retweeted" and perhaps even treated to a special in-person "appearance" from Roosh (or Forney) himself. In Roosh's case, he will poke around in the girl's twitter account, blog, or whatever else he can find, post a picture of the girl if one is available, and then invite his readers to wank off to her image ("Would you fornicate?"). Classy, huh? Of course, most of the victims could not care less and quickly disengage from (or block) their would-be tormenter. I mean, being targeted by Roosh is kinda gross, kinda like stepping in dog feces, but a typical girl wipes her feet and soldiers on... It's not like most women are unfamiliar with this sort of uninvited attention / abuse.But Roosh, at least, has wearied of this particular game. After one female student in the UK blew him off on twitter last night, he spent several hours composing a new screed, this time upping the stakes in the Battle of the Sexes that he and his flying monkeys are fighting (entirely in their own minds)."We have reached a level of influence that ignoring us is no longer an effective means of attack. By leaving us alone for so long, they gave us the needed time to carefully optimize our belief system and recruit committed soldiers to the cause."Well, uhm, actually, I think the problem may be that people have not yet figured out that the "manosphere" is one big trolling operation, and that leaving these trolls alone is probably the only way to shut them up. Most people are more bemused than alarmed when Roosh pops out of their twitter woodwork. Once they've figured out who he is, he is summarily blocked: Ah! a person of no importance at all to anyone.I have no idea what it means "to carefully optimize our belief system." And frankly, after a day of marking student essays, my brain is too fried to even try to decipher this."An attack last year from the Southern Poverty Law Center,
a formidable adversary with millions of dollars in resources,
strengthened us more than hurt. We overcame them like a dog scratching
away a flea."Well, it's true the SPLC took some heat for its creation of a list of "misogynists" to keep an eye on; some folks thought they were trivializing their mission by bothering to include rape-apologists like Roosh and Paul Elam. Personally, I am reassured that at least one social justice group (mostly thanks to the unflagging efforts of David Futrelle) are monitoring these guys. Personally, I consider these guys and their followers to be hate groups, pure 'n' simple, straight up. And it's no coincidence that manosphere blogs tend to be fertile ground for racists, homophobes, and conspiracy nuts of all stripes.

(Also, forgive me, but Roosh is seriously underestimating the power of fleas. As the owner of four dogs, I can attest that none of them has been able to "scratch away" the problem, and at this point I should seriously consider investing in Frontline or Advantage stocks.) "Even when they cherry pick quotes of [sic] context, the intelligent man (who I cater to) can easily see through the distortions by doing his own research. He's just a couple of clicks away from learning that media portrayals are dishonest and one-sided."Cherry pick what quotes? Distortions of what? Media portrayals of what? And if idle googling is your idea of "research".... Well, suffice to say there is a reason we uptight academics don't allow students to use wikipedia as a legitimate source for academic papers.Actually, the saddest bit of the passage above is Roosh's cynical claim that he "caters to the intelligent man." Even Roosh knows, on some level, that his followers are a horde of sub-literates whom he manipulates and exploits in an attempt to maintain his own pathetic "lifestyle" -- a lifestyle that consists primarily of living in cheap sublets, hanging out in internet coffee bars, and preying on Ukrainian teenagers. "We won't change the minds of most women, and we won't convert the most die-hard of white knights, but the most powerful of their upcoming attacks will have the main result of converting more men over to our side."OK, women are, what -- like, 52% of the U.S. population? Now add in the "die hard white knights" (I assume this will include most of the husbands, fathers, brothers, lovers, sons, friends, allies, and colleagues of said women?) What are you left with now? A veritable handful of pathetic sods and wankers who can't get girlfriends because they are socially inept? Wow, I'm quaking in my boots, man! "They're damned if they come after us and damned if they don't, due to the antifragile construction
of our network. This suggests that a tipping point has been reached and
it no longer matters what they do, because our ideas have already
pollinated mainstream society."Oh, dear. When Nessim Talib recently complimented Roosh's summary of his book (via Twitter), I knew it was gonna go to poor Roosh's head. (And the fact that Talib was roundly laughed at by his Twitter cronies as a result seems to have escaped Roosh entirely).

And as for the word "pollinated"... yuck, can this idiot produce one single post that doesn't reference his own spooge? "We're at the point where we have enough musculature that we can pick up the big stone off the ground... through one simple action: holding our enemies responsible for their words."As evidence, Roosh points to the fact that many "mainstream outlets" have chosen to kill comments sections entirely rather than host streams of feminist outrage vs. anti-feminist rhetoric. And yeah, I'm impressed with your new "musculature." Now, instead of looking like "a noodle-armed terrorist," you look like "a defined biceps-armed terrorist.""Seeing these comments is a good sign, but it doesn't go far enough. The next step is to hold them responsible for the rest of their lives." Roosh proceeds to hatch his diabolic, moustache-twirling scheme of world domination by explaining how the "manospherians" can ruin (ruin, I tell you!) the lives of "feminists" by tweaking Google searches. In other words, make sure any search for a "man-hating" blogger or journalist results in a link to some manosphere blogger's evisceration of her "reputation." There, that will teach 'em a lesson! "The views of every female hatemonger must be preserved in Google" so that "future employers... know of her belief system."Projection, much? I mean, here is a guy who has admitted that, if he were to do it all over again, would NOT have revealed his true identity online. I am sure James C. Weidmann (aka "Roissy") who was unwillingly outed (and subsequently terminated from his job) would concur. Old farts Paul Elam, a former "addictions counselor" and Bill Price (whom who I understand is a former car salesman) had little in the way of "careers" to lose to start out with. "It's fun to lash out at them on Twitter, [but] we must also choose a more permanent and Google-able medium to create a historical record of their behavior." Well, I'm not sure what is more pathetic here: Roosh's idea that "Google" will some day stand as the "historical record," or that any person who stands up against hate groups has anything to fear from either future employers or history itself.

Seriously. I use a pseudonym for my blogging and online activity, not because I fear being outed to my employer (whom I am fairly certain could not care less about anything I have ever posted), but because I am just a teensy bit paranoid of nut jobs (like the partially hinged, moronic commentators of Roosh's blogs) showing up at my doorstep or workplace unannounced, AK-7s in hand.

If the sort of "activism" that Roosh is promoting ( = inflammatory posts followed by online harassment) succeeds at anything, it is convincing many people that there continues to be a need for "feminism" at all...

Because here is the thing: Until recently, I would not have identified myself first and foremost as a "feminist." That is to say, until the past couple of years, I took feminism for granted. Of course, I supported the principles of feminism: equal opportunity, equal responsibility, regardless of gender. I just figured that those principles had become so deeply embedded and interwoven into the fabric of western culture that I no longer had to pay attention. The battles had been fought and won by the generation who came of age a decade before me, and my "job" was to just carry these on.

Frankly, the emergence of the New Misogynists changed all that. I am no longer complacent, and suddenly the historical struggles of feminism -- all the way back to Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin -- have become fresh, compelling, and relevant to me. And for that, I suppose, I can thank the gentlemen of the "manosphere."

18 comments:

Dogs? You have dogs?! Aren't you feminists supposed to be crazy old cat ladies? Don't tell me the manosphere (or "manuresphere" as I have decided to call it now) lied to me!

Slightly more seriously (though perhaps not much), my brother and his wife can attest to the awful tenacity of fleas, having owned a couple of cats that have been tormented by the nasty little bloodsuckers at one time or another. While looking for some souvenirs for said brother during my recent trip to the States, I found some plush microbes in the University of Arizona's bookstore, and ended up buying him a couple: a cute little fluffy flea, as well as an equally cuddly toxoplasmosis microbe (another nasty lifeform that cats often carry). Thankfully, he appreciated the twisted humour of that.

Regarding the main topic of your post, the manuresphere's delusions of grandeur never fail to simultaneously amuse and appal me. I got another taste of them myself recently after paying a visit to a blog that, for the most part, I tend to avoid these days (as reading it seldom does anything good for my blood pressure or emotional state). Called The Social Pathologist, it's written by some conservative Catholic guy who, scarily enough, works as a family GP (even more scarily, he comes from my own part of the world)! When I first stumbled upon him, he seemed fairly moderate in his beliefs, although the longer I followed his blog, the more unhinged he started to come across. Not only is he a "race realist" and someone who believes that homosexuality is a "sin against masculinity" (as well as someone who seems to lament the fact that gay-bashing isn't quite as socially acceptable as it once was), but he's also a fervent champion of the manuresphere and someone who loves, loves, LOVES Roissy (whom he once considered a modern day Saint Augustine. Blech). He and his unhinged friends also consider themselves vanguards of some neoreactionary movement that they've dubbed, I kid you not, the Dark Enlightenment (mm, sounds very black metal). Anyway, as I said, I recently visited his blog, where I found the most incredible rant about the evil librul establishment, and its nefarious and desperate attempts to crush the manuresphere. Apparently, that media special that was supposed to be run in the US recently on MRAs, but which got pulled at the last minute, was cancelled because our feminazi, librul overlords are getting scared of the whole Dark Enlightenment movement (whose, ahem, luminaries apparently include such profound thinkers as JudgyBitch, Vox Day and Roosh V) and its supposed growing power and influence, and want to suppress all knowledge of it at any cost. Seriously, check it out (I've put the URL below) - it's a glorious piece of conspiratorial wackiness, with bizarre jargon, mention of "false flag operations", and all sorts of other good stuff.

At least he now adds a preposition, i.e., "Would you fornicate with ...?" For quite a while, he didn't seem to realize that it was an intransitive verb, which as an English teacher, really tortured me.

Cinzia -- I really enjoy your blog, but as an English teacher, I hope you're aware that the word "whom" references the object of a clause. So, when referencing the subjects of your sentence (a used car salesman and your employer, respectively), the word you're looking for is actually "who." Here's a handy guide from Grammar Girl: http://www.quickanddirtytips.com/education/grammar/who-versus-whom. Anyway, keep up the good work!

Damn! I linked to Matt Forney and didn't get called out on Twitter! Now I feel insulted. Mind you, what I linked to was the fact that he offers to write articles at $5 a pop. Which is a bit sad, really.

Just on the doxxing of Heartiste, I find it interesting that the manosphere denizens live in constant fear of t'feminists coming down like a ton of censorious bricks on them, shutting them up. The reason they're afraid of that is precisely because they've crossed the line into hate speech. Rather than saying daring truths, they call on women to be raped, slapped, humiliated etc etc. These aren't great political insights, they're radioactive threats that would scare the pants off most employers. Not least because you'd have to worry if a man capable of writing this stuff could go postal one day.

When he started offering his writing and editing services, I almost felt sorry for him myself. And I thought I had it bad as an adjunct English instructor! I simply cannot figure out how these manosphere bloggers make enough money to survive, even with the sales of their self-published e-books. Recently Forney was approached by a would-be manosphere blogger, some hapless cracker living off the grid in Louisiana, for advice. He wanted to know if he could make any real money off his own blog by soliciting donations via PayPal. I checked out his blog and found pictures of random fat women, rabbits (he was raising for food), and a few half-baked, incoherent racist rants.

But just because he didn't respond doesn't mean you are not now on his radar. Forney pretends I don't exist (well, he's practically right about that), yet has referenced a few particular things I have written (attributing them to "a bunch of feminists").

The strange thing is the extent to which these guys are willing to dox themselves. So it's no wonder they want to dox others so badly. The problem is, the people they are trying to dox won't really be hurt by this because for the most part, any normal person would see who they were having online beef with and realize that they were arguing with the vilest of scum. For example the example he cites of Nitashu Tiku...if I searched her name and saw Roosh's vile, racist misogynistic rant against her pop up in the search results, I would walk away with a far worst impression of Roosh than of her. If anything, his rant against her would make me more sympathetic to her.

Speaking of other people who insist on doxxing themselves, have you read up on Chuck Ross of glpiggy.net yet?

Finally, as far as I know Roissy never lost his job as a result of being doxxed. That's an unsubstantiated rumor. Roosh even explicitly denied it once.

I am sure if Roosh's family wanted to know they would know by now. What "awful stuff about her daughter" are you referring to -- that her brother is a douche bag? That isn't her fault; we don't choose our relatives.

I don't know that Roissy is unemployed. I know that he lost his former job.

No I am talking about marina keegan, the Yale grad killed a week after her graduation. WF price used her death to say that women were wasting time after 25. I found marinas mom on fb and was wondering if I should show her the WF price article.

Cinzia - as far as I know, no one has ever produced proof that Roissy got fired. In fact, Roosh even said on his forum that Roissy never lost his job. As far as I can tell, Roissy been fired is still an unsubstantiated rumor.

No, I don't have proof. I read that he was outed to his employer, and changed jobs. I don't know that much about Roissy, just whatever is floating around on other blogs. Since his true name and address are known, it should be fairly easy to find out.